Build the campaign and organizing skills necessary to run powerful climate justice campaigns in a dynamic, generative learning space with organizers, advocates, and activist leaders from across Texas and the Southwest US!

2022 Spring TFI Cohort
The Spring 2023 Training For Impact (TFI) cohort is a 3 month (late February - May) intensive peer learning and training experience for organizers and leaders looking to build their skills, relationships, and campaign knowledge to take action on climate.
- Deepen your own political analysis, including around how racial capitalism and other systems of oppression drive the climate crisis and intersectional crises;
- Develop a holistic power analysis and strategy, based on your organizational theory of change and the critical capacities necessary for building powerful multi-racial, cross-class movements;
- Design and run campaigns that win transformative climate solutions for their communities, through campaign development, narrative and communications strategy, and a “blended,” relational approach to organizing;
- Build and sustain healthy, joyful activist teams that focus on relationships, create pathways for leadership development, and help build a people-powered climate movement;
- Support a culture of continuous learning within their organization, so you’re able to understand what’s working well (and not working well) in service of your vision and campaign goals; and
- Grow your overall personal and professional capacity to take on new roles and responsibilities within your organization and the broader climate movement. By joining the Training For Impact Cohort, you will have the opportunity to network and build deep intentional relationships within the Climate Justice Movement.
- Live in Texas or the Southwest region (including NM, AZ, CO, UT, NV) of the US;
- Are currently leading or actively involved in a climate justice campaign in their community;
- Have 1 - 3 year(s) experience doing grassroots organizing and/or climate campaign work;
- Share the Lab team’s commitment to justice-centered and intersectional organizing practices; and
- Are eager to contribute to a dynamic, joyful space where we reflect, learn, laugh, and dream together!
The Lab is working to support a powerful multi-racial, cross-class movement and we seek a cohort that reflects this vision. BIPOC organizers, youth organizers, and folks organizing in rural and low-income communities are strongly encouraged to apply!
The Spring 2023 TFI cohort will run from late February 2023 through May 2023. Participants will meet twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday) for 90-minute sessions every other week for a total of 15 sessions. The first session of the week will be mostly content and listening, and the second session of the week will be how we apply the knowledge and skills from the prior session to our work. We want participants to come prepared to not only build new skills and be trained, but also to use your own organizing and campaign experience and work on your own campaigns as we learn together. Drawing from our own organizing and campaign experience, we will build new skills and train together in addition to working on our own campaigns.
We plan to kick-off the TFI Cohort with an in-person 2-day meeting in Houston, TX, to build relationships and strengthen regional connections among participants.
On occasion we will ask participants to come prepared to a session with pre-work or homework from the previous session. This could add about an hour to the weekly commitment to the cohort.
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Zoom Meet + Greet and In-person Kickoff Prep: Week of 2/23/23 (specific date tbd)
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Week 1: In person kickoff: 3/3/23 - 3/5/23
- Session 1A + 1B: Being in right relationship, Leadership Development + Culture of Learning
- Session 1C + 1D: Political Education
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Week 2: Power Analysis:
- Session 2A: Understanding dimensions of Power, Pillars of Support, and Power Mapping (3/7/23)
- Session 2B: Power Mapping spectrum and analysis, Spectrum of Support (3/9/23)
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Week 3: Strategy
- Session 3A: How to diagnose a problem and create a solution, steps to building a Theory of Change (3/21/23)
- Session 3B: Workshopping Theory of Change, Strategic planning, and finding the gaps (3/23/23)
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Week 4: Critical Capacities
- Session 4A: Understanding the Critical Capacities to Organizing (4/4/23)
- Session 4B: Applying Critical Capacities in your community (4/6/23)
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Week 5: Organizing Part 1
- Session 5A: Organizing Structures and frameworks, engagement strategies and organizing models (4/18/23)
- Session 5B: Identifying and workshopping your organization's engagement strategies (4/20/23)
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Week 6: Organizing Part 2
- Session 6A: Recruitment and Retention, Leadership development for volunteers, Escalation and absorption (5/2/23)
- Session 6B: Creating a Ladder of engagement and nested tactics (5/4/23)
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Week 7: Application
- Session 7A: (5/16/23)
- Session 7B: (5/18/23)
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Week 8
- Session 8: CLOSING 5/23/23

Assata Harris
